Nvidia may once again bundle games with video cards, starting with The Crew 2

Image source: VideoCardz

According to a leaked Dutch ad, Nvidia will bundle a copy of The Crew 2 with the purchase of a new GeForce GTX 1080 or GTX 1080 Ti. This move could be the harbinger of the return of a relic of the pre-crypto PC gaming world: bundling AAA games with a GPU purchase.

It has been a wild few years for video cards. While prices are just now starting to return to pre-crypto mining levels and graphics card manufacturers are trying to delineate their crypto and gaming markets, things still aren’t back to normal quite yet. However, one of the more popular marketing tactics from times gone by may be returning to the video card market. A leaked ad hints that Nvidia may start bundling AAA games with graphics cards once again.

In case the cryptocurrency craze has muddled your memory, both AMD and Nvidia bundled AAA games with the purchase of a video card once upon a time. This was a nice marketing tactic used to try to lure upgraders to Team Red or Team Green that has since fallen out of practice. After all, considering that most GPUs have been prohibitively expensive when available over the past few years, upgrades have been a hard sell. Most graphics cards have been bought up by crypto miners trying their hand at the latest currency, and there’s little reason to sell a game to someone using the card for a purely non-gaming purpose.

The rumor that Nvidia may once again bundle games with the purchase of a graphics card stems from a leaked ad for Ubisoft’s upcoming title, The Crew 2. The ad states that Nvidia will include the racing simulator with the purchase of a new GeForce GTX 1080 or GTX 1080 Ti, harkening back to days long gone. The leaked ad is in Dutch, but a rough translation into English states that GTX 1080 and 1080 Ti buyers will get the Standard PC version of The Crew 2 with their card.

Hopefully, this promotion isn’t limited to The Netherlands. This could be a sign of the PC gaming world returning to normal and could be a reboot of a marketing practice that was generally well-received by gamers.

I've been a "tech-head" my entire life. After graduating college with a degree in Mathematics, I worked in finance and banking a few years before taking a job as a Systems Analyst for my local school district. I started working with Notebookcheck in October of 2016 and have enjoyed writing news articles and notebook reviews. My areas of interest include the business side of technology, retro gaming, Linux, and innovative gadgets. When I'm not hunched over an electronic device or writing code for a new database, I'm either outside with my family, playing a decade-old video game, or sitting behind a drum set.